BNEI BRAK, Israel (AP) — Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men blocked a major highway in central Israel for two hours on Thursday to protest a recent Supreme Court decision ordering young religious men to enlist for military service.
Military service is compulsory for most Jewish men and women in Israel. But politically powerful ultra-Orthodox parties have won draft exemptions for their followers that allow them instead to study in religious seminaries.
This long-standing arrangement has bred widespread resentment among the broader public — a sentiment that has grown stronger during the eight-month war against Hamas in Gaza. Over 600 soldiers have been killed, and tens of thousands of reservists have been activated, straining careers, businesses and family lives.
Then why (and I’m not trying to attack you, I’m genuinely curious) have we not seen anything about them protesting before? Because it didn’t directly affect them? Sounds pretty similar to most ultra-conservative groups, I guess.
Yeah, basically. Everyone else can get fucked as long as the Ultra-Orthodox keep getting subsidies so their men can study the Torah all day and the women can work to support the family, raise the kids, and be sex-segregated in public.
Yeah, look into the NY public funding going into ultra Orthodox schools. It’s depressing.
You’d think the Feds would step in to fix that sort of Establishment Clause violation, no matter how powerful the cultists are at the NYC (or Clearwater, or Salt Lake City, or…) local government level, but I guess not.
I recall reading once upon a time that the original idea for this exemption was that it was for literal scholars - a few hundred priestly intellectual sorts that were professional serious full-time Torah-studiers. But the exemption didn’t have any specific criteria listed for what that meant, so the ultra-orthodox all wound up saying “yeah, I study the Torah all day too, so I qualify.”